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RE: 2011 TIRE PORTION OF THE GARDEN
I like those wide tread tires with almost no sidewalls, those look like they would work better than regular tires, easier to fill with dirt.
Did you run imto any problems with the dirt getting hot in the tire planters and black pots? I ask because 2 years ago, I had a couple tomato plants in large black pots that were sitting out in the sun. The plants weren't doing as well as the others and I couldn't understand why until one day when I noticed that the dirt was really warm from the sun. I started putting boards around the pots to block the sun from heating them up and the tomatoes started to do a lot better.
The black of the tires couldn't have been helping anything. Good soil requires good microorganisms which will die in overly hot soil. Not that the soil I had had any good bacteria anyway lol. But the water was cold and the mulch was good so I think the heat of the tires might have been a factor, yes. Also, tomatoes usually like a little shade. When I eventually get to 2017, there's a volunteer tomato that did amazing but was shaded the last half of the day. Many tomatoes don't like really hot temps, either.
This year we might use some of these tires the neighbor gave but will be wrapping the inside with black plastic (since I've decided if it's edible I don't want it touching the rubber) and painting the tires to make em purdy and less heat sinking.
Did you ever have problems with the heat in general getting your tomatoes?
Well, it rarely gets as hot as 90 degrees here, a hot day is in the upper 80s, so I don't think that's a big factor for the tomatoes here. They seem mostly to like the heat of the greenhouse, as long as I keep up with the watering.
I was wondering if it even got that hot up there. The tomatoes last yr didn't do stellar here in the 95-100 degree heat even with watering, except the ones in the compost bin in the shade. It got less watering there, too. Curious
The partial shade probably caused less evaporation from the leaves, and I'd bet the compost bin stays a bit more moist than the regular growing dirt.
Perhaps rigging something so that the tomatoes have shade in the afternoon when the sun is hottest would be helpful for the tomato plants.
Good idea! The biggest problem last year was planting every late and bugs. That's probably the main reason I didn't get many tomatoes on those plants, actually. They were planted in straw bales. Still figuring it out this year what where and how to plant. I wish I had a farm hand to help me. The volunteer tomatoes grew up from seed all by itself. Sometimes I think about just tossing random seeds everywhere and hoping for the best haha.